Category Archives: Federal Reserve Bank

Dirty Dollars

Debt, Economy, Europe, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation

Putin protests the funny-money plague the US has unleashed on the world: “Unites States act as if they were ‘hooligans’ because they ‘flood’ the entire world with dollars, Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, declared, attacking the liquidity QE2 program launched by the Federal Reserve using fresh printed money.”

They start the money printing presses and throw dollars throughout the world in order to solve their immediate responsibilities. They say monopolies are bad but only if they are foreign – their monopolies are perfect. So they use their monopoly to print money until the whole world is flooded” Putin explained.

Too true and not so funny.

UPDATE IV: Bachmann: Bling For Ron Paul? (Paul Wins Straw Poll )

Conservatism, Elections, Federal Reserve Bank, Foreign Policy, Glenn Beck, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, Politics, Private Property, Republicans, Sarah Palin

The following is from my “Bachmann: Bling For Ron Paul?,” now on WND.COM:

“A day after the GOP debate in New Hampshire, mainstream media awoke to Rep. Michele Bachmann’s undeniable abilities and magnetism. Before June 13, this mummified lot had turned to Meghan McCain and Chris Matthews for information about the congresswoman from Minnesota. …

Rep. Bachmann catapulted to fame late in 2008. Yet not a thing was said in the muck-raking media—Republican included—about her background. Just imagine what publicity Debbie Wasserman Schultz (or Sarah Palin) would receive had she provided foster care to 23 children in addition to raising five of her own!

Bachmann, moreover, earned a Master of Laws in tax law from the William & Mary Law School. (Women lawyers tend to flock to the less-taxing field of family law.) Not that you’d know it from the way she has been portrayed, but Bachmann is very clever. …

With a perfectly straight face, Lawrence O’Donnell, also of MSNBC (a fertile seedbed for mind-sapping stupidity), lapped up the sub-intelligent message issued by the “Snooki” of the commentariat: Michele Bachmann is “no better than a poor man’s Sarah Palin,” Meghan McCain announced. …

Americans inhabit a world of reality TV and other frivolity. To win the GOP nomination in this parallel universe, Ron Paul needs political bling—he will want the punch, pizazz and money bombs a Bachmann can provide. …

The complete column is “Bachmann: Bling For Ron Paul?,” now on WND.COM.

UPDATE I (June 17): Just posted to Facebook:

My complete comment at WND: 1) Bachmann as tax attorney: people do what they need to so as to make a living: How many facebook, libertarian-leaning friends have I, a self-employed person, approved who work for the state? The state is, as Prof. Walter Block once put it, acting as a hostage-taker. The Sixteenth, as I put it, is “The Number of the Beast,” and Bachmann is forever tainted for having enforced the law.

2) However, I inhabit reality. Unlike many libertarians, I do believe in winning. We need to win if we want a future in this country. This is no time for robotic, tinny, go-by-the-book formulations and politics. 3) Bachmann under the tutelage of Paul would be a power-horse. You gotta be nuts not to reach for the closest thing to libertarian power we are likely to get. Having lived in “other” societies (check out my book to get a feel for that), I think I’m more passionate about getting to liberty than are people who were born to it, and are losing it bit-by-bit.

4) I’ve studies this woman since her appearance on the scene: Bachmann has the equanimity and force of a male. Her “manly” mind comes packaged in the frame of a well-bred, charming lady. This is America. Reality dictates that Paul needs “Bling.” He should form what will be a winning alliance.

UPDATE II: THIS IS NOT A BACKING OF THE BACHMANN BID. From Facebook, again, in reply to a friend who simply uses inaccurate language, in describing me as a backer of Bachmann’s presidential bid: I have never ever backed Bachmann’s presidential candidacy in my column or in my writing. The column is clear: I have backed a Paul-Bachmann ticket: “the GOP’s winning ticket: Ron Paul for commander in chief; Michele Bachmann as second-in-command.”

UPDATE III: JUDGE NAP. Via Austin Petersen on Facebook:

If Ron Paul were to win the GOP presidential nomination, there’s a chance he wouldn’t have to worry about geographical balance on his ticket. Paul, a Texas congressman and critic of the Federal Reserve, mentioned a former New Jersey judge and current Fox News talk show host — Andrew Napolitano — as a potential running mate, in an interview with TheStreet’s Alix Steel in Washington this week. Paul, though, did say he hadn’t “thought it through.”

You do know that this presidential pairing would advocate open borders. Or simply make laissez-faire immigration official.

UPDATE IV (June 18): The reader in the Comments section wrote this, with respect to my Update above (Judge Nap):

[Paul and Napolitano] would not be doing in the executive branch would be as important (or more so) as what they would be doing, specifically allowing the states to deal with these problems and not providing intrusive, tyrannical top cover for those who profit from these abominations.

Wrong—at least as far as the Judge goes. He has repeatedly claimed that immigration is within the constitutional purview of the federal government. This has been his constitutional argument against just about anything the states are doing to defend their beleaguered citizens. Yet the Judge has also advanced the anarchist’s more-congruent argument: any person in the world has the absolute right to venture wherever, whenever. You can’t have it both ways, or is this an effective intellectual strategy to rule out the legitimacy of any response to the ongoing invasion of considerable swaths of private property along the border?

This libertarian and leftist protest over any impediment to the free flow of people across borders is predicated not on the negative, leave-me-alone rights of the individual, but on the positive, manufactured right of humanity to venture wherever, whenever. In a world where absolute private property rights were upheld, this might be a proposition, but not as the statist status quo stands now.

UPDATE V (June 19): Paul Wins Straw Poll.

Writes the campaign for liberty on behalf of Ron Paul:

“And the winner of the 2011 Republican Leadership Conference Straw Poll is . . . RON PAUL!

Those are the words – uttered just minutes ago here at the RLC in New Orleans – that are sending shockwaves throughout the entire GOP establishment.

And it was YOU that made it happen! I can’t tell you how much that means to me.

You see, at last year’s straw poll, establishment darling Mitt Romney defeated me by only one vote.

But this year I defeated my nearest rival by more than 200 votes!

That means the establishment can no longer deny the fact that there is widespread grassroots support within the GOP for a return to constitutional government.”

If you’re in it for winning, Rep. Paul, it’s time to get some of that Bachmann bling, with which to broaden the base.

You can read my new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” on Kindle now. The print copy is available both from Amazon and from the Publisher. Hurry: Publisher is currently offering free shipping, including to our readers in South Africa. To purchase, click on the “Buy From StairwayPress” Button.

UPDATED: The Animal (Spirits) Move Chairman Ben

Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Political Economy, The State

John Maynard Keynes wrote impenetrable prose. Likewise, Ben S. Bernanke speaks it. Obscurantism typified Bernanke’s address at the International Monetary Conference, Atlanta, Georgia. The “animal spirits” are lurking everywhere here. See if you can spot them.

UPDATED (June 8): John Maynard Keynes, “the commie who controls economies from the grave,” is alive and well in Fed Chairman Ben’s voodoo economics:

BEN: “[T]he ability and willingness of households to spend will be an important determinant of the pace at which the economy expands in coming quarters.”

“Spooky dude” Keynes, and his acolytes, honestly believed that the fickle consumer’s biorhythms control the economy. If the consumer is spooked, “the economy” gets that way too.

BEN: “[H]ouseholds are facing some significant headwinds, including increases in food and energy prices, declining home values, continued tightness in some credit markets, and still-high unemployment, all of which have taken a toll on consumer confidence.”

The Keynesian mixes cause and effect liberally. After all, the average man hasn’t a hope in hell of grasping the exclusive knowledge and magic formulas to which only Voodoo economists are privy. What Ben fails to mention is this: He is pumping vast amounts of paper, non-stop, into America’s phony economy. With every infusion of fake money, as Austrian economists have warned, the dollar drops like a stone. Assets will continue to devalue. Saving will be difficult; retirement near impossible. Prices will soar, and the currency will eventually collapse (hyperinflation).

Before you blame Obama, the Republikeynsians began this spiral in earnest.

Have at it.

Cain Un-Able

Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, Political Economy, Republicans

What a great title from NPR: “Herman Cain Wasn’t Able On Palestinian Right Of Return Question.” (That is if you know the Hebrew Bible.) It captures this Republican presidential contender’s Palinesque lack of command of basic facts, in general, and in the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, in particular. The man is not only clueless, but perfectly comfortable in holding court on an issue about which he knows nothing. The last quality is way worse than the first. Check Cain’s insertion of the “compassionate” adjective at the end, vis-a-vis Israel. You can win elections in America armed with a fatuous vocabulary that includes words like “hope, change, compassion, dreams.”

Fox News Sunday’s host Chris Wallace: Where do you stand on the right of return?

CAIN: The right of return? (Pause) The right of return? (Pause)

WALLACE: The Palestinian right of return.

CAIN: That is something that should be negotiated. That is something that should be negotiated.

WALLACE: Do you think the Palestinian refugees, the people who were kicked out of the land in 1948, should be able or should have any right to return to Israeli land?

CAIN: Yes. But under — but not under Palestinian conditions. Yes. They should have a right to come back if that is a decision that Israel wants to make.

Back to — it’s up to Israel to determine the things they will accept. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it real clear in his statement following the statement that President Obama made. They are wiling to make some concessions. They are willing to give on a lot of things. They are willing to be compassionate.

[SNIP]

I “Liked” Vox Day’s evisceration of the Republicans’ token racial candidate’s economics:

“He is not even close to being a genuine conservative on the single most important issue presently facing the nation. Indeed, both his economic philosophy and his employment record are quite literally Communist. In the fifth of the “10 Planks” of the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx demanded “Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.” In the United States, credit has been centralized in an exclusive government monopoly granted to the Federal Reserve; Mr. Cain was the deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City from 1992-1994 and the chairman from 1995-1996.

MORE.